Wood stones, wax, and bones--that's what people wrote on.

Right now, you're reading an article in AppleSeeds magazine, printed on paper. Paper is cheap and easy to get, so it's hard to imagine life without it. But how did people record their ideas before paper was invented?

The answer is, lots of different ways. At first, they painted and carved on stone surfaces. Stone lasts a long time, but imagine a stone copy of AppleSeeds!

Some ancient people scratched and painted on palm leaves. They're light and easy to write on, but they fell apart quickly. So writers turned to other plant parts. Many used wood. It grows almost everywhere and is easy to cut, easy to write on with ink or paint, and easy to carve. Where bamboo was available, writers scratched letters onto that. Many people used the bark of trees, too.

What other materials were used? The ancient Mesopotamians used easy-to-find clay. Writers wrote on clay while it was soft, then let it dry. Sometimes they baked the clay to make it even harder. All over the world, people also used broken pottery pieces, called ostraca, as notepads.

The ancient Greeks and Romans ...